Firefox hits out at Google, recommends Bing

Bing has been handed a glowing recommendation from an influential Mozilla (developers of the Firefox browser) employee.

Asa Dotzler, Firefox’s director of community development, has reacted to a controversial CNBC interview with Google CEO, Eric Schmidt.

In the interview, Schmidt stated:

If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines – including Google – do retain this information for some time and its important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.

Reacting on his blog, Dotzler recommended Firefox users switch to Bing, saying it has much better privacy policies. Dotzler was one of the first employees of the not for profit Mozilla Foundation. He made a follow up post, saying:

“I dont actually know what Schmidt was thinking when he said that but those sound like the words of someone who doesnt think very deeply about privacy… I hope that Schmidt or someone from Google comes out and says that he regrets making that statement and that theres simply no context in which it can be seen as anything but dead wrong. There is no context in which it is acceptable to suggest that privacys only function is to obscure lawbreaking.”

Currently Google commands 71.6% of search market share, Yahoo! and Bing have a combined share of 24.7%.

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